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Who Is This Hornswoggler?

Andrew Wheeler has had a varied career in publishing and related fields. He spent 16 years as a bookclub editor (mostly for the Science Fiction Book Club), and then moved into marketing. He marketed books and related products to accountants for Wiley for eight years, and now works for Thomson Reuters on large online legal products. He was a judge for the 2005 World Fantasy Awards and the 2008 Eisner Awards. He also reviewed a book a day for a year twice. He lives with The Wife and two mostly tame sons (Thing One, born 1998; and Thing Two, born 2000) at an unspecified location in suburban New Jersey. He has been known to drive a minivan, and nearly all of his writings are best read in a tone of bemused sarcasm. Antick Musings’s manifesto is here. All opinions expressed here are entirely and purely those of Andrew Wheeler, and no one else.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Yet another big-list-of-books meme, and once again I'm picking it up from James Nicoll. This particular list was an attempt to create a canon of great books by female writers (one book each) of science fiction -- both the "one book per writer" and the "science fiction" have proven to be grounds for interesting discussions elsewhere -- in response to a line of books with a masculine version of the title which turned out to be very boy-centric.

As usual, the rules are: set titles in bold if you've read them and in italics if you own it but haven't read it yet. It is also allowable to bolda series if you've read all of it.

1 Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (1818)

2 Herland, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915)

3 Orlando, Virginia Woolf (1928)

4 Lest Ye Die, Cicely Hamilton (1928)

5 Swastika Night, Katherine Burdekin (1937)

(6 Wrong Side of the Moon, Francis Leslie Ashton (1951), removed because Francis Leslie Ashton is a man)

7 The Sword of Rhiannon, Leigh Brackett (1953)

8 Pilgrimage: The Book of the People, Zenna Henderson (1961)

9 Memoirs of a Spacewoman, Naomi Mitchison (1962)

10 Witch World, Andre Norton (1963)

11 Sunburst, Phyllis Gotlieb (1964)

12 Jirel of Joiry, CL Moore (1969)

13 Heroes and Villains, Angela Carter (1969)

14 Ten Thousand Light Years From Home, James Tiptree Jr (1973) -- I've read a number of Tiptree stories, though not all of this particular collection

15 The Dispossessed, Ursula K Le Guin (1974)

16 Walk to the End of the World, Suzy McKee Charnas (1974)

17 The Female Man, Joanna Russ (1975)

18 Missing Man, Katherine MacLean (1975)

19 Arslan, MJ Engh (1976)

20 Floating Worlds, Cecelia Holland (1976)

21 Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, Kate Wilhelm (1976)

22 Islands, Marta Randall (1976)

23 Dreamsnake, Vonda N McIntyre (1978)

24 False Dawn, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (1978)

25 Shikasta [Canopus in Argos: Archives], Doris Lessing (1979)

26 Kindred, Octavia Butler (1979)

27 Benefits, Zoe Fairbairns (1979)

28 The Snow Queen, Joan D Vinge (1980)

29 The Silent City, Élisabeth Vonarburg (1981)

30 The Silver Metal Lover, Tanith Lee (1981)

31 The Many-Coloured Land [Saga of the Exiles], Julian May (1981)

32 Darkchild [Daughters of the Sunstone], Sydney J van Scyoc (1982)

33 The Crystal Singer, Anne McCaffrey (1982) -- I've read probably two dozen McCaffrey books, including most of the Pern series, but not this one

49 Unquenchable Fire, Rachel Pollack (1988) -- This is a wonderful, wonderful book that more people should read. And I imagine many people would say the same about all of the books on this list that I haven't read or considered.

50 The City, Not Long After, Pat Murphy (1988)

51 The Steerswoman [Steerswoman series], Rosemary Kirstein (1989)

52 The Third Eagle, RA MacAvoy (1989)

53 Grass, Sheri S Tepper (1989)

54 Heritage of Flight, Susan Shwartz (1989)

55 Falcon, Emma Bull (1989)

56 The Archivist, Gill Alderman (1989)

57 Winterlong [Winterlong trilogy], Elizabeth Hand (1990)

58 A Gift Upon the Shore, MK Wren (1990)

59 Red Spider, White Web, Misha (1990) -- I was looking for this book for ages, primarily because SF Age thought it was the greatest cyberpunk novel of all time (they thought that for possibly as long as a year), but never actually got a copy or read it.

60 Polar City Blues, Katharine Kerr (1990)

61 Body of Glass (AKA He, She and It), Marge Piercy (1991)

62 Sarah Canary, Karen Joy Fowler (1991)

63 Beggars in Spain [Sleepless trilogy], Nancy Kress (1991) -- I would not recommend reading the whole trilogy, which goes off on a succession of annoying tangents, but the first book is excellent.

As I expected, I'm not as well-read in this area as I'd like to be. (And, these days, I'm tending to read mostly the writers I already like, which doesn't help the matter.) Having a list certainly helps
so, thanks to Ian Sales for sparking this discussion.